Language Development in Children With Mental Retardation.

The acquisition, understanding and usage of language as a means of effective communication is one of the most remarkable achievements of primates. In the context of homo sapiens, children make the transition from incoherent cooing and babbling in their early months of existence to becoming fully communicative individuals within a few years. It has been found that children generally acquire the essential components of language by the age of three or four. However, this may not be true for children unfortunately affected by mental retardation, which is manifested in the form of various kinds of delays as compared to normal children. Research has revealed that different patterns of language acquisition exist across different demographics of children afflicted by mental retardation, a review of which is presented in this Paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]